


A Handful

by Trojie



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fisting, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:04:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Merlin is a hard game to learn the rules for."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Handful

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a fisting fest. Ergo, involves fisting. In what you might call a central role. Posted now because I, uh, lost it. And then refound it. Truly, my googledocs is where prose goes to die.

This is hard work, this game.

Arthur knows Merlin is a bundle of secrets, hidden safe under the cage of his ribs and the silk of his skin, and Arthur wants to drag them all out into the sunlight and know them and have them for himself, like he wants everything about Merlin, because he wants to learn Merlin and be the best at Merlin, like no-one ever was or has been or will ever be again.

Merlin is a hard game to learn the rules for, though. He plays Arthur right back and they get all tangled up, and they fight, but he seems to have learnt Arthur's gambits faster than Arthur can learn his.

'Come on, then,' he says, and the only person Arthur has ever seen spread their legs wider was a tumbler-girl who could bend herself into all sorts of fantastical shapes, fit into a tiny goods-chest or bend right over backwards to touch the floor behind her. Merlin hasn't her skill, but he does have her grace - face-down in the decadence of Arthur's bedclothes, silken-naked and spreading for Arthur like he does it for a living.

Arthur has three fingers in him. 'Tell me,' he says, pushing deeper, leaning over Merlin so that his lips brush Merlin's ear. 'What do you want?'

'You,' says Merlin with a smirk and a gasp and his knees pressing further down into the mattress to ground him. 'I want you and I want you _now_.'

Arthur could cover him right now, just swing a leg over like mounting a horse, drive into him and ride him into the bed until he came of nothing more than being taken. It would be so good - Arthur can see how he'd do it, how he'd haul Merlin's wrists back so that his fingers could knot at the small of his back and Arthur could hold them there with one hand, brace himself with the other arm rammed into the pillows by Merlin's face, so that all Merlin can see is Arthur's strength. Maybe Merlin would suck his fingers, gasping for it. But these are all things they've done before.

Brushing the edge of Merlin's body with his thumb, where he's taking Arthur's so well, so hungrily, Arthur thinks of a different plan. 'Be patient,' he says instead of telling Merlin to _take it, take me, come on_ the way he sort of wants to. And before Merlin can retort, Arthur's easing his littlest finger into a bundle with the other three on an out-stroke.

Merlin shivers under his hands when he pushes back in again. 'Ohhhh,' is all he can seem to find it in him to say, and he's starting to tense. Arthur sits back so that his free hand can stroke over Merlin's tight, bony shoulders.

'It's not that much more,' Arthur coaxes. 'Feel it, Merlin - you're nearly there, you're so good -' It's a lie, because four fingers isn't _nearly there_ at all, not for what Arthur has planned, and Merlin huffs a laugh, going gentler under Arthur's soothing caress.

'You won't be happy until you've tried out everything you can think of on me, are you,' he says. 'God help me if you start talking to Gwaine.'

'I don't need to talk to Gwaine,' Arthur says, and again he eases his thumb around the pink-red stretch of Merlin tight around his fingers. 'I overhear enough of the knight's stories.' He takes his hand from Merlin's shoulder and uses it to knead his arse instead, pushing the muscles tight-apart with the spread of his fingers so that he can look his fill.

Merlin's almost boneless in the embrace of the mattress now, his head sunk into the pillow so that his words are muffled. Arthur's being as gentle and slow as he can with the in-out-push-pull of his hand, the unguent he's using to slick the way almost foaming around his fingers because he's used so much of it. 'Half their stories are imagination anyway,' Merlin mumbles in a raw voice.

'Then we'll have to outdo them,' says Arthur, and it has to be now, it's right, it feels perfect, the in deep and the out far enough that his thumb can edge its way into the shape of his hand. He puts it there, starts in again. Merlin gasps, realises, and doesn't even question it, _welcomes_ it in fact, and Arthur shivers. 

To the first joints, the tips of his fingers, it feels no different. Merlin's wide enough that he lets Arthur in without trouble, with nothing more than a sighed, groaned ' _unhhhh_. But by the second joints, the knuckles, the extra width makes itself felt, and Arthur starts to feel the strength of Merlin's body, the way it holds him like a vice and he has to push. Merlin's noising turns deep, turns breathy, almost into a whine, and right there Arthur would stop - except for the look on Merlin's face.

His eyes are closed with his lashes fanning down, a dark smudge in the candle-light against his pale skin, and his mouth is open on a panting gulp for air, and he looks so - he looks as if he's dreaming, a filthy, unreal dream that Arthur would love to see the details of. When Arthur hesitates there, his hand two-knuckles deep into Merlin's body - the depth of a tumbler of rough Northern spirits, and just as intoxicating - Merlin's eyes open, and deep within them is a challenge, an imp of mischief and a swamping, clinging lust that makes Arthur's pause seem like cowardice and a false promise, as if Arthur _owes_ Merlin this thing.

Determined not to break that faith, Arthur keeps on.

The broad part of his hand where fingers and thumb meet palm seems too much, seems impossible, but he keeps on, feverishly aware of how Merlin twitches and settles beneath his hands, how Merlin's breath is short but even, carrying sharp noises that speak desire. And oh, Arthur wants Merlin's desire. He won't be the master that takes pleasure and gives none in return. He won't be another bedmate that Merlin _served_. He won't be the reason Merlin holds back until he cannot take another thing, and must snap.

Tiny sliver by tiny sliver, Arthur's hand is moving in. As it tapers away the pressure eases, and Merlin's tiny grunts embolden, his shivering turns to moving, and Arthur gently, carefully twists by increments until he finds an angle that has Merlin exhale on an expletive, all tense for a second and shaking, _shaking_ as he says 'There, Arthur, I - there.'

'Shall I move?' Arthur asks, his own voice almost as broken. There he is, inside - and other men have been inside Merlin, he knows that, but none of them like this. It makes some hot, jealous beast inside him crow with triumph, that this is his, that this is Merlin and they are so perfect together that he can make Merlin squirm with fullness and still want more of him.

'Please,' Merlin says. He makes an abortive move to get up on his knees, but Arthur holds him still.

'No, no,' he croons, and his fingers start to ball up inside Merlin, he starts to make a fist all slowly. 'I've got it, I've got you, just relax for me,' he says, and just like with three fingers, just like he would with his cock, he pulls back a little, pushes in a little, and Merlin says ' _unh_ ' high in his throat. 'Just take me, Merlin, take what you want, you want this, you _need_ this -'

'I need you,' says Merlin, panting. 'I - Arthur, I can't - I can't last, like this, please, _please_ -'

Arthur knows the moment Merlin comes - he grips, he grinds the bones of Arthur's hand like millstones together, makes a disbelieving noise - and it happens in the flicker of a candle-flame, his body relaxing afterwards and the smell of him seeping into the air to mingle with the smell of the fire and their sweat and the scent of the slickening ointment. It's a moment Arthur thinks lasts longer than it should have, as if it wants him to remember it - the feel of perfect control, of perfect happiness, of perfect desire; everything he wants in his hands, _literally_ in his hands, or under or around them.

His cock is almost aching in his trousers for a touch or a soft mouth or just a bit of pressure, even, but Arthur's attention is on Merlin, where Merlin is swallowing him up, where he needs to be free from for the sake of Merlin's ability to walk tomorrow but is loath to leave. It isn't until Merlin stirs a little that Arthur pulls free, as slowly as he can, already starting to think about warm, wet rags and the joy that he would get from washing Merlin down, making him hold still to be cleaned, folding him back into the bed and watching him sleep -

But Merlin rounds on him as soon as he's free, pulls him back into the mattress, frees him from his drawers and slides between his legs, mouthing for his cock as if he's starving. Thoughts of washing, of calm and warm and control leave Arthur's thoughts faster than startled birds from a tree, as Merlin takes him deep and stays there.

Arthur struggles up to lean on his elbows and look down at Merlin stretched across the mattress, sucking him off. Merlin's arse is as pink as if he'd been slapped - and there's a thought for another time - and his expression is smug, and this, Arthur thinks as he starts to tip, starts to fall into orgasm, is playing to win.


End file.
